The fat in the body is generally considered to be the result of an accumulation of neutral fat within white adipocytes by energy ingestion in excess of metabolism energy.
The accumulation of body fat causes obesity, which is aesthetically unfavorable and leads to various diseases including arteriosclerosis. Such health and cosmetic concerns have created a growing desire for a firm body.
However, the obesity is nowadays increasing for many reasons including overeating, physical inactivity and stress. As such, decreasing the subcutaneous fat and preventing the accumulation thereof are now substantial problems for people irrespective of age. Traditional slimming methods include diet restriction, exercise and ingestion of digestion and absorption inhibiting food, in addition to which external preparations such as cosmetics for topical slimming have been increasingly used.
Specifically, cosmetics such as skin milks, creams, skin toners, packs and cleansing preparations, and external preparations such as ointments, dispersion liquids, cream agents and external liquid agents are mixed with medicinal ingredients for slimming effects. Such medicinal ingredients include caffeine, hedera rhombea extracts, hamamelis extracts, green tea extracts, tea extracts, oolong tea extracts and seaweed extracts.
Many of the medicinal ingredients have a purpose of facilitating breakdown of accumulated fat. Slimming external preparations that contain garcinia cambogia extracts for inhibiting fat synthesis have more recently attracted attention, as described in Patent Documents 1 and 2.
The garcinia cambogia extracts are known to contain much hydroxycitric acid, and the use of concentrated extract thereof in foods and the like is described in, for example, Patent Document 3.
Further, Patent Document 4 discloses the use of hydroxycitric acid in the form of calcium or sodium salt for increasing water solubility and stability of hydroxycitric acid.
However, traditional external preparations containing hydroxycitric acid and/or salts thereof (hereinafter, hydroxycitric acids) have been unable to produce satisfactory effects.
The hydroxycitric acid is usually used as calcium salt that is stable, but in such cases the feeling of use particularly as external preparations is very bad and has been desired to improve.
[Patent Document 1] French Patent Publication Bulletin No. 2716374
[Patent Document 2] French Patent Publication Bulletin No. 2729856
[Patent Document 3] WO 96/05741
[Patent Document 4] JP-A-2001-527022